Szuhanek - Beating the Najdorf rare lines

Andrew Burnett is a Scottish FM who has represented his country on several occasions. He is the author of cult classic Streetfighting Chess and his love of the Dragon opening stretches back to his teenage years when he was looking to escape from 1.e4 e5! He is currently working on the second volume of DragonMasters.
DragonMasters volume 1 charts the history of the most exciting and dangerous opening known to chess: the Dragon variation of the Sicilian Defence.
Unlike almost all other books on the Dragon, the focus is not purely on theoretical developments. Instead, the author has combined the most historically important games, the famous players who chose to fight either side (sometimes both sides!) of the opening, and the most unexpected and interesting stories featuring the Dragon. World champions, contenders for the crown, codebreakers, revolutionaries in every sense of the word, all feature in this remarkable and entirely unique look into the history of an opening variation. As the ancient maps say: Here be Dragons! 404 pages Hardcover

Tapis de jeu en velours vert. Dimensions : 77 x 77 cm

I used to play a lot of chess as a teenager many decades ago. Those days, there were hardly any computers that played the game and there was certainly no Internet. Learning new ideas in the game was possible only through books or magazines and if something was not clear, there weren’t too many people to consult for explanations. I was never a great player and quit when other things in life took precedence. Then, a few years ago, I decided to start playing again and be better than before. This time, there were a lot of resources at hand computers’ analysis, streamers, commentators everywhere. This meant that now, opening theory became monstrous in its size. Learning all of it is now a very difficult task. I realized that the key to any improvement, before memorizing endless variations, lay in understanding the opening phase better and practicing as much as possible hence the reasoning behind this book.

Nery Strasman, 2024  - 256 pages - Hardcover

Throughout the history of chess, elite players have been studied, celebrated and adored. But there also been  players, while perhaps not regarded as world-class competitors, who had a precious gift, but who did not know (or could not find) the way to success. They were lost in the labyrinth of difficulties that life always places before every human being.

In the end, for various reasons, history forgot this select group of masters. For some, their careers were very bright (as in the cases of von Kolisch, Neumann and Charousek) but also extremely short, limiting their renown and depriving them of deserved laurels. For others, chess turned out to be excessively demanding for which their minds were unprepared. Finally, for a truly unfortunate few, tragedy – always an unwelcome guest – took over their lives and then took life itself from them.

An exceptionally researched historical work, these pages contain the stories of 23 players with a very unique way of understanding chess (sometimes ahead of their time) and who prioritized the artistic side of the game over the results: an approach that was not properly appreciated in their time.

Now, for the first time, Spanish author and chess historian Javier Cordero puts these Forgotten Talents in the limelight. Archival photos and almost 200 selected games nicely supplement the biographies of these star-crossed players who became Lost in the Labyrinth of Life. 288 pages

This complete chess set is composed with standard chess pieces in the traditional staunton style. A great chess set  with generous proportion and made from acacia wood.

The board is made from walnut wood and with annotation like in the chess clubs, perfect for analyse. Size of board is 49 cm and each square is 5 cm.

Size of chess piece is 93 mm for the king, each piece is weighted and felted.